The 1999 Estimates showed that the Government was meeting its Public Capital Programme commitment to limit the annual average increase in net current spending to 4 per cent, the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, said.
The Minister, responding in a debate on the Estimates, said the Government had taken full account of the need to improve public services and had allocated the resources required to make significant progress on a number of fronts in 1999.
Mr Jimmy Deenihan (FG, Kerry North) said that while the target of 4 per cent had been broadly met, it disguised some worrying underlying factors.
Public service pay costs rose by 10 per cent in 1997 and 9 per cent in 1998, and were projected to rise by 5 per cent in 1999. Also, increases in PRSI receipts with lower debt service costs disguised a sharper increase in the cost of providing Government services, and separate figures were not given for PRSI receipts.
"However, day-to-day spending, less debt service costs, is budgeted to rise by more than 6.5 per cent before Budget Day announcements are added to this total. This is more than double the rate of inflation," Mr Deenihan said.
Mr Sean Ardagh (FF, Dublin South Central) said he was delighted that the Taoiseach had stated at the weekend that he intended to throw a big party at the end of 1999 as part of the millennium celebrations.
"A sum of £14.9 million has been set aside for such celebrations in the Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach. It is appropriate that the entire country shares in and celebrates our current success," he said.
Mr Pat Rabbitte (DL, Dublin South West) said that last year, in his first book of Estimates, the Minister, Mr McCreevy, contrived to boost artificially the out-turn for 1997 in order to allow him to feign adherence to his own spending ceiling of 4 per cent for 1998.
"The poor infrastructure in so many areas is now a barrier to maintaining healthy economic growth rates," Mr Rabbitte said. The lengthening queues for access to health care were reminiscent of what happened when Mr Charles Haughey admitted that he had grown out of touch. Primary education and pre-school supports in disadvantaged communities were crying out for resources.
"The gap between the beneficiaries of the halving of capital gains tax and the long-term unemployed is widening. There is an urgent moral imperative for a massive transfer of resources to the huge urban black-spots where unemployment and deprivation are clustered," Mr Rabbitte stated.
Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) said the Estimates debate was unique in that the Government had a current Budget surplus unprecedented in the history of the State.
"Budget 1999 is the Minister for Finance's second chance to get it right. Budget '98 was a deep disappointment in that it failed to spread the benefits of economic prosperity across the dividing lines of Irish society. The effect of across-the-board tax cuts was to benefit disproportionately the better off and to widen the gap between rich and poor in our society," he said.
